


Dentist

by belana



Series: New Order [2]
Category: Crows Zero (2007)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belana/pseuds/belana
Summary: Did you graduate from an university and get on in the world? Do you wear a white coat and help those in need? Don't forget those who helped you.Kirishima's story.Prequel to New Order.





	

**Author's Note:**

Kirishima Hiromi turns off his cell phone every night. Actually, he turns it off on the way home so he doesn't have to explain to patients how to book an appointment ('I don't keep the record, sorry. Yes, only through the reception. No, I don't work after 6 p.m., sorry for inconvenience. Unfortunately, I'm not the one who approves the schedule.'), how to get rid of red wine stains on newly whitened teeth ('Yes, I understand. Do you have baking soda? Or hydrogen peroxide? Yes, it's transparent and often used for treating minor wounds. No, it's harmless, if you will follow instructions. And don't drink red wine for at least two weeks, please.') or how to relieve toothache ('I assure you, one pill is enough. Yes, you can come to my office in the morning.'). Been there, done that.

The second phone (only half a dozen people know its number) is always on.

Kirishima hears low growl of its vibration even in his sleep. He sits up, walks into the kitchen, so he doesn't wake his wife, and picks up.

"Oh, you're up." Izaki-san's voice seems tired. "I thought you wouldn't pick up."

"I always pick up," Kirishima mumbles through a cigarette in his teeth, twirling a lighter in his hands. "What's up?" he asks, exhaling cigarette smoke.

"Meet me at your office in thirty minutes."

Kirishima looks at the clock near the refrigerator. It's 2.15 a.m.

"I won't make it."

"You'll have to."

Izaki hangs up.

Kirishima sighs loudly, adjusts his sweat pants and puts out the cigarette, that he barely smoked, in a narrow glass ash tray.

Two minutes later he's fully dressed, opens the door of a dark sedan and drives away. There are no jams in the middle of the night even in the city center, so he arrives to the clinic in twenty minutes.

Only his eyes hurt because of bright lights, cheering up the city, as if it were Christmas.

 

* * *

 

He has to park a few buildings away from his office and almost runs to the back entrance —  the eerie blackness of the unlit corridor lures  him inside.

Footsteps echo too loudly in the empty building. Kirishima tries to walk quietly, but he's still afraid that he would run into a guard, who'd blind him with a flash light and ask what the hell the good doctor is doing in the office at such an hour.

The door to his office is closed, but not locked.

"And you said you wouldn't be able to make it."

Kirishima turns toward the voice, but sees only the red tip of a cigarette.

"What am I to do?"

If he were more naive he'd have hoped that Izaki-san came because of acute pain in the seventh left molar. Fortunately — or not — Kirishima knows who paid for his tuition and fixed several serious problems in his life, and he knows: now is the time to pay the bill.

No, start paying the bill. That's sounds about right.

The leather chair squeaks, sempai stands up and approaches the window. He closes down the blinds and turns on the lamp.

"This is your patient."

Kirishima swallows back the bile and unnecessary questions.

"Does he need his teeth removed or filed?"

"Filed, not obviously so, but he should not be identified by his dental records."

Kirishima nods, his neck feels stiff, then he goes to the sink. Izaki-san watches as he mindlessly washes his hands.

Gloves... He had surgical gloves here somewhere.

He wouldn't touch... this through thin latex.

The patient — even in his mind he can't say 'corpse' — is still warm. Blood drained away from the skin, mucosa has darkened. There is no smell, but rigor mortis is obvious.

"Are you expecting me to break his jaw?" Kiriskima asks through gritted teeth as if he's afraid to open his mouth, afraid to puke.

He closes the patient's eyes so he doesn't have to look into dim sclerae and slowly dilating pupils. How long have you been dead? I don't want to know. It's completely unnecessary information.

Sempai silently stands on the other side of the patient, takes his chin with his bare hands. Kirishima flinches, it takes an effort not to look away.

"Are you going just stand there?" A cigarette is clinging to Izaki-san's lip. It moves in sync with his words, it's so fascinating. Kirishima looks away with some effort and presses on the patient's nasogenian sulcus and chin with stiff fingers.

Together they manage to open the patient's mouth.

Yellowish dried tooth enamel shines in harsh white light.

Tooth caries, paradontosis, dental calculus... Kirishima blinks, chasing away irrelevant thoughts.

"You'll be flushing." He hands a thin pipe of an oral irrigator over to sempai and chooses a bigger tip so he'll be able to work faster.

The machine hums quietly, the drill vibrates in his hand. Smoke mixes with the smell of burned bone tissue, Kirishima inhales and turns away. He can't take it anymore. He's about to puke.

For some reason he keeps thinking that the patient is going to open his eyes, scream blue murder and jump up any minute. Or he'll try to strangle the good doctor.

"Hiromi," sempai calls. Kirishima looks at his serene face. "The sooner you'll finish, the sooner you'll go home."

"Right." Kirishima tries to control nausea and starts filing the right maxillary canine.

He decided to concentrate on the job, but notices Izaki-san putting away the irrigator. A few seconds later he lights a cigarette and puts it between Kirishima's lips.

"I have a loose tooth," he almost whispers into Kirishima's ear.

"You can be the next one," he shrugs and offers with dark humour. "I will change the gloves, don't worry. I'll even sterilize the instruments."

"I hope I won't be the next in the nearest future," sempai snorts quietly. "And I won't be brought here, anyway."

"As long as you don't steal from the common fund and don't negotiate with rival clans behind Takiya's back the biggest threat to you is a stray bullet. You'll have a grand funeral, I'm sure."

"Are you going to carry my coffin?"

"My shoulder is injured."

"Which one? This one?"

Kirishima swallows when a wide hand carefully passes over his tense muscles.

"Stop it."

"A doctor with two left hands..."

"Izaki-san, I'm holding dangerous equipment."

"Alright, alright," sempai laughs, takes the cigarette out of his mouth, flips ash into a clean tray and finishes it.

Kirishima concentrates on the patient again, suddenly realizing that he's almost done. There is only one premolar left.

He takes off his gloves and washes his hands. He’s afraid that sempai is going to say something like There. No harm done. Or that he’ll have to carry the patient out.

“Let’s go.” Izaki gently squeezes his shoulder. “My men will finish here.”

He quickly dials a number from memory, waits for one dial tone and hangs up.

 

***

 

Kirishima looks around on the way to the parking as if he’s trying to find sempai’s ‘men’. Either they haven’t arrived yet or they’re already cleaning up in his unlocked office. It’s none of my business, Kirishima says to himself. It’s over at least for today.

Strictly speaking, the day has only begun, he really can’t be sure of anything.

“Get in.”

Izaki-san has a huge crossover, too flashy for his line of work, but then again, it’s none of Kirishima’s business. He climbs into the front passenger seat without a word.

“Here.” Izaki hands him a bottle of brandy. “Leave some for me.”

The bottle is full, even tax labels are still intact, but Kirishima knows that the warning was not idle: a few minutes later there are only a few gulps left in it. Kirishima doesn’t feel drunk, only his stomach warms up for a while after each gulp.

Kirishima takes off his sweaty shirt. Now he’s wearing a grey t-shirt with a face of an American doctor from that TV series printed on it. How appropriate.

Sempai crosses dividing double line without a word and doesn’t comment his kohai’s appearance and state of mind. Silence fills the car like a cocoon, even opening he window doesn’t help — the air outside smells awful. There used to be a linden alley here, Kirishima thinks. He used to walk here with his mother from the hospital. Now there is a six-lane highway, grey, lifeless and ugly.

Just like life, once wild and blooming, is buried under asphalt, he thinks and adds, Here goes.

His adrenaline hangover begins with cold fingers and wobbly legs. Alcohol wears off, Kirishima shivers, even his teeth are chattering. Night lights of the city blur, sounds become duller like he’s wearing earplugs.

“Let’s go.”

Kirishima blinks and sees dented stairs of a shabby two-storey building under his feet — God knows how it survived in downtown. Judging by dark windows, it won’t be standing here for long. It looks like occupants have already moved out, the building itself will be demolished soon.

“Where are we?”

Izaki-san pushes a rickety wooden door. There is another one behind it: steel and new.

“We’re in a safe house, the one mentioned in every spy movie,” sempai snorts. “Come in, James Bond. And don’t even try to take your shoes off.”

Truth be told, Kirishima didn’t even think about shoes — not now, not in the office. He should have, the floors were cleaned by the time he returned, he’ll have to explain dirty footprints to nurses in the morning.

“As I said, my men will take care of everything,” Izaki-san reminds him as if reading his mind.

“That man…” No questions at all, remember? “He doesn’t look like a yakuza.”

Kirishima licks his lips and looks around. Wallpaper is peeling off, there is no furniture, not to mention household appliances, but there is a massive safe near the wall.

If sempai says that the dead patient has nothing to do with criminal world…

“As if you can see a difference between a yakuza and a katagi.”

Izaki-san opens the safe and takes out a bottle of whiskey. Kirishima doesn’t remember to look away and sees bundles of yen, dollars and euros. There are two guns and several boxes of ammunition on another shelf.

“You have a tattoo,” he says suddenly. That’s true. When sempai entered the clan he had to cover the teenage tattoo on his lower back so no one would laugh at him.

“Genji doesn’t. His old man forbade it.”

It made sense, even though it was strange. Kirishima'd decided for some reason that Takiya the younger had his whole back and shoulders covered in tattoos.

“There are no glasses.” Izaki-san offers him the opened bottle. “Or ice.”

“Or something to eat,” Kirishima agrees, taking a swig. “Do you want some?”

Sempai doesn’t answer. He just reaches out — past the bottle — grabs his t-shirt, drags him closer and kisses him roughly.

Kirishima grasps his well-toned shoulder out of reflex as if he’s trying to push Izaki away, grinds his teeth, biting sempai’s tongue.

“Shush.” Izaki puts his hand on the back of Kirishima’s head, forcing them to touch foreheads. “It’s all over.”

Kirishima’s lips are quivering, and he’s clinging to sempai’s wide shoulders.

“You did well, Hiromi.” Izaki-san strokes his back, whispers nonsense into his ear. He’s stubbly and warm — alive. “You did the right thing. Thank you.”

When he pulls up Kirishima’s t-shirt higher his hands seem hot.

“It was a desperate measure,” he continues. Kirishima feels his belly quiver under Izaki’s hands. “I won’t abuse your kindness, I promise.”

So it’s not the last time, Kirishima thinks, gripping sempai’s blond hair in desperate helpless anger. Izaki is already unbuttoning his jeans and pulls them down without opening the fly — Kirishima still has narrow hips of a teenager.

And he’s hard. How is it even possible? Here and now?

His shoulder blades hit the wall. Abandoned buildings always have walls cold as ice: no one breathes inside or puts the kettle on or warms up miso soup.

Children used to play here, adults berated them and asked to be quiet; radio woke everyone in the mornings and urged to do morning exercises.

Now this two-room apartment is a yakuza safe house where Izaki Shun, who probably killed a man, blows off Kirishima Hiromi, who helped to cover said crime barely half an hour ago.

Kirishima breathes loudly through his mouth, gasping like fish out of water and contemplates what the yakuza code of honour has to say about such behavior. It must be considered unmanly. Or has sempai climbed so high that he’s beyond any rules?

Rules never applied to Izaki in the first place: not in Suzuran bathroom, not in the backroom of the church where the groom was about to meet his beautiful bride, not in the club chill-out where the school reunion took place.

And the apartment is empty anyway; there is no reason to be shy.

Even when you’re laid down on the crumbled jacket that doesn’t save you from drafts, when you’re stretched roughly and hurriedly, even when you’re fucked into a damp tatami without any pity or compassion.

There’s white ceiling, covered in cracks, and blond head above — and a bundle of discarded clothes next to you.

“Home?” Izaki-san calmly lights a cigarette and puts on the nearest underwear. Their wives are used to washing someone else’s clothes.

“Yes.”

As long as her husband returns to her in the morning — to the warm bed.

Who cares what he does at night as long as the bills are paid and children are fed and dressed?

“I’ll call you.”

 _Don’t,_ Kirishima thinks, but doesn’t say a word.


End file.
